I Am My Own Story

“I Am My Own Story”

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” 

-Steve jobs

A friend of mine from high school poses thought-provoking questions on Facebook from time-to-time.  A few of weeks ago he asked, “Perhaps my greatest lesson has been ___________.”  I saw the post and sat and stared at it for a while and thought there have been so many life lessons I have learned and a lot of them have not come so easily.  I kept coming back to one and decided to comment with this, “Don’t listen to other people’s narratives about you… you are your own story.”  Why did I pick that out of all that I could have chosen?

Last night at my twelve-step meeting, the speaker was talking about his experience with the fourth step – the moral inventory.  He talked about the resentments and fears he had listed in his inventory and he stressed that he had written down all of them “real or imagined”.

I think it underpins so much of what held me back for so long.  I chose to live in fear and self-pity for the majority of my life.  I listened to either what other people said about me or, more accurately and more often, what I perceived they said or thought about me.  I made up entire scenarios about what was going on in other people’s heads about me as soon as I walked into a room.  I decided that they did not like me and why.  I was sure they were judging me and I was sure I knew their thoughts and intentions.  I then turned these imagined scenarios into dialogues that ran on loops inside my head, repeating vile and negative untruths about myself.

When the occasional person came along and actually did judge me or make some off-color comment, I saw this as proof of what the whole world was saying or thinking.  I let all this rule me.  I took in these perceptions and what I thought I “should’ be according to others or according to societal norms and saw it as the rule of law.

I love the quote above from Steve jobs, I always have since the first time I read it.  I always silently amend it for myself though and add that I should not allow my inner voice to drown in the noise of my own negativity.  I have always been my own harshest critic and I get mired in a swamp of self-criticism which quickly weighs me down with self-pity and fear.  I become immobilized before I can even take action and then start to shrink in the face of the smallest obstacles or outside critiques.

I have learned over the years to quiet the inner negativity and bolster up my inner voice, the good one.  The inner voice that tells me I can and that I am allowed, that I even deserve.  The inner voice that says I can write a book for children or start a blog about recovery or change careers at mid-life or find sustained and joyous recovery.  The same voice that connected with a higher power and saw me as a beautiful soul for the first time in my forties and became someone my children and others can count on.

So yes, there are always going to be detractors in life.  Sometimes they will look like enemies and sometimes they will come in the form of family and friends who will say something that is just not supportive in the way you need at the moment.  The enemies are just enemies, broken people like the rest of us.  The family and friends may just not know how to help you at that moment.  The person you have to watch for the most is yourself.  If you tell yourself you can’t do something; you won’t.  If you tell yourself you can, most of the time you will.

I am my own story and my ending is not written.

 

"Embracing My Entirety"

“Embracing My Entirety”

           

This time five-years ago I was waking up on the detox unit of a rehab facility.  I was fully clothed, deeply hung over and full of the most intense shame I believe I had ever felt and certainly ever hope to.

If I am honest, I was disappointed that I had woken up at all.  I could not fully mentally and emotionally process where I was or what I had done to be back in rehab for the second time.  It was as if my mind could not allow me to go there just yet for fear I might break into a million tiny pieces.  I would eventually get there, but it was a gradual process through the steps; a slow letting go of my ego.

The person I was then and the person I am today are vastly different yet essentially the same.  I am still me at my core but so much about how I view myself and therefore the world around me has changed.  The inflexibility of my thought processes and my judgement has shifted from black-and-white to living in a shifting state of grey.  Few things in my life are concrete, few things are set in stone.  I know I have love in my heart, I know I am grateful and I know I want to live as congruent a life as I possibly can and those things I don’t shift on.  Everything else is on a continuum.  I am always learning.  I live in a constant state of understanding I don’t have all the answers but that no longer frustrates or embarrasses me.  If I ever start to feel as though I have it all figured out again I will be in trouble. 

Over the past five years I have not just found sobriety, I have found recovery and there is a difference.  Stopping drinking is one thing.  Being blessed to live your life as much as you can in what the Big Book calls the “sunlight of the spirit” is an entirely different experience.  I am grateful that I found the group of people I did.  They took me through the steps in a particular way.  I have no doubt that the process saved my life.

Through the steps I was given a new way of thinking that in turn changed my vision.  I was able to look at myself for the first time in the way that I imagine God sees me.  I believe that an all-powerful being, a higher power, an essence, an energy or, God if you like, embraces us all in our entirety.  God takes in our good and our bad and loves us despite ourselves.  Through my step-work I was able to meet myself for the first time – warts and all.  I was able to fully accept myself in my early 40s.  I don’t just like myself today, I love myself.  To go from wishing I had not woken up five years ago to loving myself completely today is a miracle.  I wish everyone could see themselves with love and tolerance.  I wish it even for people I don’t like; perhaps I wish it for them even more.

There have been other things gained in five years.  I have a relationship with my children I could not have imagined.  This time five years ago, I thought they would be better off without me.  Now I know differently and I am able to be a loving and healthy part of their lives today.  Though my marriage did not last, my relationship with Frank is a good one.  We co-parent really well and we are true friends.  We laugh and when we have conflicts we work it out.  We have what Wren calls a “friendship divorce” and I will take that gladly.

I have repaired relationships with old friends.  I have made amends with people.  I have learned to forgive.  I look the world in the eye and stand tall.  I talk openly and honestly about who I am and what my struggles are because I accept the darker side of myself along with the light because to hide from one side over the other no longer feels congruent.  I don’t feel nearly as much shame, though I still sometimes struggle with its legacy.  I am perfectly flawed and beautifully human.

A friend of mine from my home group mentioned the other day that he takes the time to thank God when things go wrong.  I remember him saying this and I think my head cocked to the side like a dog.  I at first could not grasp the concept.  Why would you thank God when things were going wrong, you are supposed to thank him when things are going well?  He clarified that he does both.  He doesn’t just want to thank God when things are easy but he wants to remember to thank God when things are hard.

It seemed such a foreign concept to me, but it was something that kept coming back to me over the course of the next week.  I began to feel myself starting to do this when little things were not going my way, then when bigger things went wrong.  It started to become easier and it started to really make an impact on my thinking.  It is like the opposite of a fox-hole prayer for me.  I feel my anger rising about something and I take a moment to thank God and it instantly puts things into perspective for me and I am grateful.

This is the kind of thinking that I am receptive to now.  This is the kind of thought process I can have now that allows me to turn things around and look at all facets of a situation and be thankful rather than resentful.  It changes everything and makes me calm in situations that used to send me right over the edge into fear and self-pity which are my Achilles heels.

So I am not saying that I am a saint and I am certainly not perfect five years later.  I have growing to do still and much left to learn, but I am open to doing so now and so very grateful that I can. 

Today I am no longer disappointed that I woke up.

Embers

“Embers”

ember

[em-ber]

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SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR ember ON THESAURUS.COM

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noun

a small live piece of coal, wood, etc., as in a dying fire.

embers, the smoldering remains of a fire.

           

Over the holidays I was sad and lonely for a variety of reasons.  The end of December marks the fun of Christmas but is followed shortly after on the 27^th with the date of Liam’s death.  Frank and I married on December 29^th so that date is also now somewhat bittersweet.  Frank had asked me if I would be alright if he took them on a trip over the New Year and I was happy they had the chance to go on what turns out to be an epic vacation with him but then I got sick and a friendship ended and I was much more on my own than I had anticipated would be the case. 

A close friend of mine runs a Bible study course from him home on Sunday mornings and I have been through the course twice before in the past four or so years.  In December, he asked me to join them one Sunday morning and sing for the people attending the course.  I agreed and forced myself to go even though I was feeling sad and down. 

I have learned over the years that when I am down I have to force myself to do things and to get out or feeling down will turn into depression before too long.  I am in a place now in recovery as a result of having gone through the steps in such a thorough way and finally gotten a very clear picture of myself, that I listen to my own advice now, I don’t just give it anymore.  The steps have allowed me to live in a place where I can have sadness but don’t get depressed; where I can worry but don’t get anxiety and where I can get scared but no longer live in fear.

So I showed up at my friend’s house and I sang “I am Not Alone” by Kari Jobe.  It is a beautiful song by a Christian artist and if you haven’t heard it, it is worth looking up.  I had not heard it before my friend introduced me to it and had me sing it at another event a few years ago.  It speaks to not feeling alone because God is always with you.  I sang it in the car once when I was trying to learn the words initially and Wren was with me.  When she heard it the first time, she cried.  She told me it made her think of her brother Liam and how she never got to meet him but he is always with her.

I don’t know what happened to me either, but I sang for the people in the room and one woman cried while I was singing it.  I made it through to the end of the song and then I burst into tears as I sat down afterwards.  It contains a powerful message and one I clearly needed at that moment. 

After I sang, I stayed to hear the pre-recorded sermon that the group watches and then discusses.  In the sermon, the pastor talked about embers on a fire.  He talked about how while the embers are on the fire they burn well, but if you take one off the fire, it begins to lose its heat and the fire in it begins to die, just as the dictionary definition above denotes.  He goes on to say though that if you put that same ember back on the fire with the other pieces of coal or wood, it will begin to burn again because it will draw heat and energy from the others.

It was a message I needed at the time.  All of it.  I needed the song and the sermon.  I was and am not alone and when I am feeling like and ember I need to find my fire again.  I need to find the people who feed my flames and build me up spiritually and emotionally not tear me down. 

Then because my fire is stronger I need to turn around and build up the heat in other dying embers.